


Colin Morgan and the Crawl of Doom

by orphan_account



Category: Merlin (BBC) RPF
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-07 15:04:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the last five minutes, Colin Morgan has decided to become a priest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colin Morgan and the Crawl of Doom

**Author's Note:**

> Set between seasons and assuming they're both in London. Voyeurism, swearing, and an epic amount of crack.

In the last five minutes, Colin Morgan has decided to become a priest. He thinks this is a very good decision, for the following reasons:

Number one: Priests do not, except in very unusual circumstances, get completely sodding drunk. (Colin has tasted altar wine, and it is not very good. This probably explains a lot.)

Number two: Priests know better than to get completely sodding drunk at a party thrown by Bradley James. (Well, Colin assumes they know better than that. He talked to a lot of people earlier in the evening and none of them admitted to being priests, though a lot of them were drunk.)

And number three, and most importantly: Priests do not get so completely sodding drunk they end up hiding in the bathroom, and getting trapped there when Bradley James, party-thrower, brings a girl into the bedroom. The bedroom, connected to the bathroom, and Colin's only escape route. (Shit.)

Colin feels this is a very convincing list, and he looks forward to his imminent priesthood. He only hopes that he will be able to do the priest's uniform justice, because black is not really his colour. His mum tells him he looks washed-out in black, and he feels he is too young to be washed-out, particularly when he remembers that washed-out actors never get any work.

He also hopes that Bradley won't notice him trying to escape. Colin's plan, made right after his sudden conversion to a life of religious devotion, is to crawl out of the bathroom, through the bedroom and out to sweet, sweet freedom, also known as the hallway. He plans to do this with his eyes firmly shut, because there's being mates and then there's accidental threesomes, and Colin is quite sure he hasn't got a good reason to be hiding in the shadows and watching Bradley have it off with someone, oh, dear God. 

Yes, Colin thinks, may as well get started on the praying. There's going to be a lot of that from now on.

*

Fortunately, Colin is an actor. This means he can imitate things from life with just the power of his imagination. Right now he is imitating a landed fish, but that is probably because he is remembering lots and lots of liquid which has sadly disappeared, or perhaps taken up residence in his belly. Also, the bathroom floor is cold and he can't get comfortable. 

The second lucky thing about this situation is that Colin once played a cat on stage. This is lucky because cats are sneaky and can walk very, very quietly. Colin intends to be a cat — no, he _is_ a cat. He is a small, black, Irish ninja cat, and Bradley won't even know Colin was here, won't know Colin has heard him saying ridiculous things to try and make the girl laugh, even when she's already gone to bed with him. 

Colin gets a funny pang in his chest. Bradley is nice, he thinks. That makes it even worse that Colin is lying here in the dark, on Bradley's cold bathroom floor, listening in like some kind of creepy Irish ninja cat who has no friends. Colin feels a bit sad about this. This is the trouble with being an actor-slash-priest, sometimes you take your work home with you, sometimes you can't put the costume aside. It takes him a minute to let the sad feeling ebb and remember his cunning feline plan of escape — the only alternative, he tells himself, is to lie here for the whole night and listen to Bradley and that probably-very-nice woman sleep together, and what if they need to use the bathroom? Surprise Colin Morgan, Colin thinks morosely. No one needs that. 

He takes a deep breath. He remembers the plan. Then he screws his eyes shut and begins to slide, silently, cunningly, to the open bathroom doorway. 

*

The kissing sounds are terrifying. They tell Colin, whose senses are on extra-high-super-alert, that there are people right there, a few metres away, and at any moment they could stop kissing and look up and Bradley, for one, would probably recognise Colin. The bedside lamp is on, and Colin's costume is an imaginary one. It's a cat-costume for the _mind_. 

His only consolation is that the sound of his own breathing is probably getting lost in the heavy breaths of Bradley and his — lady friend. Colin's mum sometimes refers to Neil's girlfriend as a lady friend. Colin used to think it was totally naff but now it seems terribly fitting and a term a priest would probably use, priests being respectable and also a bit naff. 

It's not until Colin is half out of the bathroom that he realises he is going to have to open his eyes and scope out the territory.

A number of things become immediately apparent. Firstly, Bradley is naked. So's the girl, whom Colin doesn't recognise, although to be fair he can't see her all that well. She has long dark hair. She's got her hand between Bradley's legs. Bradley is naked. 

They're also kissing, and not looking at Colin, so that's a success right there. Hurrah for ninja cat! Colin gives himself a tiny cheer — on the inside — and eyes the far-off doorway to the hall. He thinks, suddenly, with a surge of bravery, that he could probably just dash out. If he could get to the foot of the bed (queen size, how fitting) then he could probably make it across the other half of the room before anyone saw him. One lightning dash to freedom and all would be well. What a tale he would have to tell! Or not tell, because he really doesn't have 'being a third-wheel' on his list of things to do and on that point he has an image in his head of Bradley looking angry, and it makes his stomach feel queasy and unpleasant.

The thought is enough to spur him on, wholly out of the bathroom and onto the difficult terrain of carpet, one determined elbow in front of another. 

*

It's at the foot of the bed that things go wrong. Colin is flush with his success, and probably he gets cocky. Halfway across the room and no one knows he's there! Once he gets out of priest school he'll probably never be out of acting work again. _Did you see my crawl?_ he'll say. _Yes, just one of those crazy moments when it all comes together, you know. Amazing._

It's about this point he realises things have progressed on the bed, as well, and he is deeply glad he can't see anything, curled up at the base of the bed as he is.

Colin leans his face against the mattress for a moment. Bradley sounds — quiet. But pleased. And focused, and distracted, and thoroughly involved in something that has nothing to do with Colin and never will.

Obviously the time is right to make a run for it. 

The problem, of course, is that Colin is completely sodding drunk.

*

He stumbles. The room wavers before his eyes, and he instinctively throws out a hand to catch himself, but what he catches is the bed, and the barest edge of Bradley's foot. He freezes in a horrified, ungainly squat, his heart pounding. There's a gasp in the air. When he looks up, Bradley is looking right back.

*

Bradley is sitting up, one hand pressed against the girl's lower back. She's moving against him with a slow roll of her hips, holding his neck and jaw on either side, sometimes dipping her head back and letting her hair sway between her shoulder blades.

She doesn't seemed to have noticed anything wrong, but Bradley is staring at Colin and Colin is staring back. Colin can't read Bradley's expression, and he can't look away.

Then, slowly, Bradley lowers his head and kisses the girl's shoulder. He shifts, slowly slowly slowly, until he is lying down and the girl obscures him completely.

*

Left at the end of the bed, Colin feels blown open, like his ribs have been shocked into swinging wide, a pair of neglected windows caught in a gale. 

He is about to gather himself up as best he can and leg it to the door, not even caring if anyone sees him now because Bradley knows, Bradley _has seen_, when suddenly Bradley moves again. Just his foot, moving a fraction until it knocks against Colin's hand, there where it rests on the bedspread.

Colin looks at his hand and the foot and then higher, but he can only see long legs and the soft shadow between, and he tries not to look any further and certainly not at the girl he doesn't even know. That would be creepy and ungentlemanly and certainly very rude. Apart from that, Colin has no fucking idea what to think. 

Several things spring to mind:

* *It's a dare. A challenge. Bradley would do that.

* *Bradley is telling him to get out right now.

* *Bradley is crazy.

* *Colin is touching Bradley's foot.

 

Colin ruminates on this last point, watching his hand open and his fingertips press into the pale arch. From there he lets his fingers travel upwards and wrap themselves around the middle. Then he draws a lingering thumb down the sole. 

Bradley's toes curl.

Colin repeats the process, watching the strange tightness that results. He feels oddly scientific, though he is not giving up on his priestly conversion just yet — there's certainly a haze of devotion burnishing everything in Colin's mind, a strange light-drenched quality that doesn't belong to anything in the room. Possibly it's from alcohol, in which case Colin must revise his opinion of Bradley James, party-thrower and sometime actor, because it must have been the good stuff he'd been drinking — but he's not willing to rule out Godly intervention. 

Not when Bradley is pushing his foot further into Colin's grip.

*

Colin is clearly the worst ninja in the world. But maybe he makes a good cat, he thinks, as he holds Bradley's foot still and bows his head to lick across the soft sole of it. 

Up on the bed Bradley makes a rough keening noise, and that's why Colin did it, though he didn't know that at the time; and that's why Colin does it again, needing to hear that sound. Needing to hear Bradley.

He paints little licks up past the ball of Bradley's foot and mouths at the warm skin. When he turns his face to rub his cheek against the length of it, hearing Bradley gasp at the scritch-scratch of Colin's stubble, he remembers being back in France, in the mud-drenched village, the rain pelting down and Bradley laughing at him between takes. 

He kisses Bradley's ankle softly. He thinks about that long afternoon as he draws his tongue around the jut of bone and bites down on the strong muscle above. Bradley is panting, broken sounds escaping from low in his throat, rhythmic and hypnotising, and Colin feels an echo in his own blood, thumping hard in his cock, in his chest.

Close, he thinks, close, close, _closer_. He can't last long; something's going to break. He kisses his way back to the bottom of Bradley's foot and licks his way up to the toes, curling his tongue to fit along their curved undersides. 

Bradley swears, fast and brittle. _Fuck_, he says. It sets a shock ringing in Colin's head, hearing him speak, one word like an admission Colin wasn't supposed to hear. He closes his mouth tightly on a whimper and drops a hand to rub furiously at his cock, desperate for pressure to tamp down the heady throb of his body. Can Bradley can hear it, the rough kneading of denim? Colin pushes his hips forward, riding the heel of his own hand, and rises up on his knees to plunge his mouth around Bradley's toes. He sucks and Bradley's muscles jerk, _oh fuck, fuck_.

The words hurtle into each other and stop making sense; Colin can't hear them anyway. All he knows is the flex of Bradley touching his tongue, a deliberate push reverberating all through his body, a hard shudder of tension. His body shakes, his fingers grip, and all at once he's tipping over the edge into a hot, mindless flash.

*

He couldn't say how long he slumps listlessly at the foot of the bed, a pleasant blankness settling upon his mind, but it seems to be approximately two millenia. One hand is still curled around Bradley's ankle, and when Bradley pulls it away his hand takes a moment to curl back in on itself, as though it had grown accustomed to the position.

Colin blinks at the change and abruptly hears what is being said further up: Bradley is asking his — girlfriend if she would like a glass of water.

She says yes, she says, "Just going to use your loo, back in a minute," and Colin hits the ground before he's even registered it, backing up into the shadow as the mattress shifts.

She disappears into the bathroom and suddenly Bradley is there, standing tall at the foot of the bed, reaching down and hauling Colin to his feet. The room swims. He gets a glimpse of Bradley's flushed cock and his flushed, sweaty chest and then Bradley's face, flushed, sweaty and dear. 

"I'm sorry," Colin whispers. "I was in the bathroom and then you were there and I tried to get out and I don't think I'm a very good ninja and anyway that foot thing was all your fault, not mine!"

If Bradley's eyes get any wider his eyeballs will pop right out and roll around on the floor getting fluff on them and it will be just typical for the way Colin's night has gone, _typical_.

"_My_ fault!" Bradley hisses, and then casts a quick look over Colin's shoulder to the bathroom. "Never mind, just go and we'll — never ever speak of this again. Ever."

"Bradley," Colin tries, but Bradley says, "Not talking about it!" and hurries him toward the hall. 

"Can I sleep on your sofa, then?"

"Yes, shut up," Bradley says and goes to close the door between them.

"Wait, maybe we should not not-talk about it," Colin whispers and Bradley stops. "Yeah, for the sake of working together, you know."

Bradley gives him a long look. "Well," he says dubiously, "maybe we can not not-talk about it tomorrow. Even though you're obviously some kind of pervert with a foot fetish."

Colin looks at Bradley meaningfully.

"Am not!" Bradley replies, flushing a little more. 

"This is a lot more kinky than I expected from you," someone says from behind Bradley, and Colin looks to see Bradley's lady friend standing in the middle of the room with a blanket dragged round her shoulders. Colin hadn't even heard her come out from the bathroom.

"Erm, hi," he says. "Sorry. I'm just going. Erm, to the sofa. I'm really sorry," he says.

Bradley says, "You _knew_ he was in here?"

Ninja Lady Friend adjusts her blanket. "I did happen to see someone crawling along the floor with his arse in the air," she says. "Though you were quite stealthy," she says to Colin.

Colin smiles. "Thank you."

Bradley is maintaining an expression of 'Did you say a nuclear bomb?' and Colin decides he should add that to his acting repertoire. You never know when you're going to have to do a Cold War epic and bring out exactly that look.

"Oh, well," Bradley says sarcastically, shifting abruptly from 'nuclear horror' to 'grumpy at 6am on set', "Colin, Sarah; Sarah, Colin. Make yourselves at home."

"Hello," Colin says. 

Sarah shuffles back to the bed. "Look, I'm kind of tired and well-shagged and I want to get some kip before I head home, right? So," she waves a hand at them. "Come here and be quiet or go have your chat outside."

Colin makes it two whole steps inside the door before Bradley rounds on him. "Not you," he says. "You, sofa."

"Right," says Colin. "Sorry."

"So you should be," says Bradley. "After you snuck in here —"

"I was sneaking out, not in," Colin protests.

"And how did you get in here in the first place, use a bit of magic did — ow!"

A pillow biffs Bradley square in the head. 

"You, sofa," Sarah says, and switches off the lamp.

*

"I can't believe you got me kicked out of my own room."

"I can't believe you won't move over."

Colin pushes at Bradley's shoulder — ridiculous, having shoulders that big — and tries to find himself a comfortable position.

Bradley elbows him in the stomach.

"Is she your girlfriend now?" Colin asks, turning sideways to fit, kneeing Bradley accidentally-on-purpose.

"No," says Bradley. "We're just — it was just that."

"Hmm."

"Go round doing things to people's feet very often?"

Colin laughs, and presses his face into Bradley's shirt for a moment. It smells of faint sweat and warm cotton, and maybe in the morning this will all seem crazy but right now he feels fine. "Good party," he says, laying his head down on one of those ridiculous shoulders. 

"Yeah," Bradley replies, into Colin's hair. "It was alright."

Colin closes his eyes and thinks he might hold off on the priesthood plan. For one thing, he's really tired. For another, apparently he sometimes gets completely sodding drunk and does impious things like suck on people's toes, and that's probably not advisable behaviour for the clergy. And for _another_, he's just realised that Bradley would give him absolute hell about it.

Better if he just sleeps it off.


End file.
